Ultimate Evolution I Became the Master of the World

Everyone's eyes were glued to Michael.

When he dialed the phone, the school's phone rang, and everyone thought it was weird as hell. Before they could ask, they saw him hang up in a hurry, looking scared out of his mind. "Michael, what's going on?" David asked, their voice shaking.

David saw Michael freaking out and started trembling too. "Dude, don't freak me out. We're all counting on you. You're freaking me out. Just smile or something, man."

Michael had been the rock, the one who got everyone out of the Ghost Realm, giving them a sliver of hope.

But now, seeing his face, everyone started to panic.

Michael looked dead serious. Before he could say anything, Nikolai's satellite phone started ringing.

He glanced at it, and it was the number left by the Thunder King on the forum.

He called back.

"Yep, this is a trap, a really freaky trap," Michael said through gritted teeth, not sure if he was more pissed or scared.

The phone kept ringing, but he didn't pick up.

He knew the caller couldn't be alive. Who knew what would happen if he answered.

Luckily, the ringing didn't last long.

After a bit, the call ended. His phone didn't ring again.

But then, the phones of the other students started ringing one after another, different ringtones echoing around. Everyone looked at their phones and saw the caller ID was the number left by the Thunder King on the forum.

"Michael, look." Sophia, Aria, and Viktor showed him the caller ID, their eyes wide with fear.

"Don't answer," Michael said, dead serious.

The others nodded. They all got that this call was bad news and definitely shouldn't be answered.

David didn't have a phone; he had lent his to Michael earlier. Now, he looked at the screens of the others' phones and started shaking. "Shit, it's all the same number. Calling ten phones at once, this is some ghostly crap." "My number isn't that one. Mine shows the teacher's number," a student named Marco Santoro said, instinctively answering the call.

"Marco, are you nuts?" Viktor almost shouted, scared out of his wits. "Michael said not to answer the phone."

"Chill, it's the teacher's number," Marco said. "Maybe he's here to save us."

"Hang up now." Michael rushed over, trying to grab the phone to hang up.

That was even scarier. The teacher was the first to disappear in the Ghost Realm. Everyone else was dead, how could he still be alive? Sure enough, there was only static on Marco's phone. The teacher didn't speak.

Then, a sound that made Michael's blood run cold came through. The sound of knocking from the other end of the phone.

It was exactly like the one outside the classroom earlier.

Heavy, oppressive, and suffocative.

At that moment, Marco realized how serious this was. His face went pale, and he dropped the phone in fear.

The phone hit the ground, screen shattered, but the call was still connected.

That creepy knocking kept coming from the receiver.

Michael rushed over, grabbed Marco's phone, and ended the call as fast as he could.

"Marco, you idiot. If you wanna die, fine, but don't drag us down with you." Viktor grabbed his collar and yelled, but his anger couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. He didn't know what would happen if the call was answered, but he knew it wouldn't be good.

"I didn't mean to. It showed the teacher's name. If it was someone else, I wouldn't have answered," Marco cried, wiping his tears like a kid.

"Alright, everyone chill. Now's not the time for this. It's partly my fault, I should've warned you earlier," Michael said, walking over. "And fighting won't help us survive. Focus on the situation we're in." Everyone went silent.

"Michael, what happens after the call is answered?" Aria asked, her voice shaky.

"Nothing, it's just the ghost coming," Michael replied.

"What?" Everyone's eyes widened in terror.

The knocking sound on the phone had a terrifying function-it could summon the old man.

And the outcome was obvious.

Michael gripped the phone tightly, recalling the Thunder King's post on the forum.

'It's a trap. The whole story on the forum is a trap. The Thunder King encountered the old man knocking at his door at home. From what happened in the classroom earlier, someone died when the old man knocked on the first door. And the Thunder King's house had two doors, the front door and the room door.'

'In other words, the Thunder King was alone at home. When the first door was knocked, he was already dead. The rest of the story on the forum couldn't have been posted by him. The phone number and audio files weren't left by him, either. Only one thing could do that.'

'A ghost!' Michael took a deep breath.

The earlier part of the post was uploaded by the Thunder King, a living person. But towards the end, he was already dead, and the ghost continued posting.

To prove this, he reopened the forum story and scrolled to the end.

Sure enough.

He was right. The last few replies in the forum story had tons of spelling errors, totally different from the Thunder King's earlier posts. Plus, there was a half-hour gap between posts.

This was a curse spread by an evil ghost.

Anyone who heard the knocking would be visited by the old man. This explained everything that had happened.

'Hearing the knocking online or on the phone brings the old man. Hearing it in real life means immediate death. But why didn't the old man appear when I played the audio file in the bathroom earlier?' Michael's face was sweaty as he pondered.

He was trying to figure out the old man's patterns and methods of killing. Just to survive.